


Stitch Witchery

by BardicRaven



Category: Original Work
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Knot Magick, Opposites Attract, for the love of yarn, protection spell, unlikely love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27519463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardicRaven/pseuds/BardicRaven
Summary: It was inevitable, really. Sassafras Woole, knitter and witch, would cross the path of Rose Willow Stitcher, needleworker and witch hunter.How could they not? From their religious outlooks to the Crafts they practiced, they were polar opposites, and thus destined to find each other.
Relationships: Knitting Witch/Cross-Stitching Witch Hunter, Sassafras Woole (original character) & Rose Willow Stitcher (original character), Sassafras Woole (original character)/Rose Willow Stitcher (original character)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2020





	Stitch Witchery

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Angie13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angie13/gifts).



It was inevitable, really. Sassafras Woole, knitter and witch, would cross the path of Rose Willow Stitcher, needleworker and witch hunter.

How could they not? From their religious outlooks to the Crafts they practiced, they were polar opposites, and thus destined to find each other.

They met personally before they met professionally, as it were, when they ran into each other - literally - at the Feverfew Fiber Shoppe, when they were both looking for ingredients for their next projects.

Apologies were exchanged and invitations to tea and stitching as well before the two parted company that day, each intrigued by the other and wondering if they might have, at last, found someone to help ease the loneliness of their lives.

The subsequent Sip’n’Stitches went well and Sassafras and Rose Willow became fast friends. And then, the awful and inevitable thing happened – they discovered who each other really was. Or rather, what they were. After the initial shock of discovering that they were on opposite sides of an ideological line, the next question was... what were they going to do about it?

The answer turned out to be: nothing, at least not until they had to. If they just kept quiet, they hoped, nothing would be said and nothing would have to be done.

Which is seldom, if ever, allowed to actually happen in this world.

* * *

The first sign that something was wrong was when Rose Willow accidentally-on-purpose bumped into Sassafras at the Fiber Shoppe one day, slipping a note into her yarn basket.

_My superior is starting to ask uncomfortable questions. Take care - I think she is getting suspicious about you. - RW_

Sassafras turned away, palmed some yarn as she pulled out the note and read it before shoving it back into the bottom of her basket, as if by hiding it, she could unsee it as well. She then quickly paid for her yarn and left the shop.

When she returned home, she ran to her stash and started choosing yarns - black for shadow-calling for invisibility, red for heart's blood, a skein of particularly scratchy yarn in a hideous yellow-green that she'd been saving for just such an emergency, as God/dess knew she'd never use it for anything else, and another, in a beautiful sky blue, of the softest wool imaginable, to counteract and relieve both the itch and the situation alike.

Pulling those to her, she set up her swift and began to spin the skeins into balls, reciting spells as she went. A spell for protection. A spell for Good Fortune. A spell to hide discovery. A spell for... love? The swift sputtered to a stop as the implications of that hit Sassafras squarely in the heart. There was ‘like’ between them, yes, especially after all this time spent sharing tea and sticks and string, but… love?

After a long moment, she set the swift back into motion. Yes, there was love there. So, yes, she'd admit it. Honesty with self and others was the hallmark of a witch, after all. And the truth was that as much as she was spinning this spell for herself, she was also spinning it for Rose Willow.

She didn't know if Rose Willow would appreciate that fact - she rather suspected she wouldn't, given her profession - but for this, she didn't care. If they both got through this intact, then they could worry about the consequences.

After the yarn was balled, she quickly cast on for a charm to help hide them both. When she’d made the last stitch, grateful that she wouldn’t have to have that horribly itchy yarn in her hands any longer, she rapidly cast off and then dug a small hole by the front door and buried the charm. The protection would last for as long as the wool did, which she fervently hoped would be long enough for the Witch Hunter Superior to forget all about her suspicions about her and Rose Willow both.

* * *

And so time went on. Things seemed to calm down, going back to the way they'd been. Rose Willow's superior found other fish to fry and witches to find, and Rose Willow herself was able to slip an 'all-clear' note into Sassafras’ basket a few weeks later.

Perhaps they had relaxed too soon. Perhaps Rose Willow’s superior had been laying a trap to see what the two of them would do if they thought themselves in safety. Perhaps the spell had simply worn off.

It didn't really matter. Whatever the reason, on a cold day in the depths of winter, Sassafras heard a frantic knock on her front door and opened it to find Rose Willow on her doorstep, her face pale with fright and cold.

"Let me in, quickly!" Rose Willow pleaded. "My superior..."

Sassafras didn't need to hear more. She pulled Rose Willow inside and latched the door behind her. "How long do we have?" she asked as she got Rose Willow settled into a chair, her cold wrap off, a warm blanket wrapped around her, and a cup of warm cider in her hand to reheat both body and soul.

"I don't know. A few hours? She'll have to go to the magistrate, but I don't think they'll say her nay."

Sassafras thought for a moment, then nodded. "It will do. Do you have any of your cross stitching with you?"

Rose Willow stared at her as if she'd lost her mind. "Why?" was all she could come up with after a few moments of blank staring.

"Because," Sassafras explained slowly, as patiently as she could manage, given the situation, "as you've thought, I'm a witch, fiber magick is real, and you can help save us both. So. Do. You. Have. Any. Of. Your. Stitching. With. You?"

Rose Willow searched her pockets, her pouch, and her basket, and came up with a scrap of cloth, a couple of needles, and some thread ends. "I was planning to match these for a project," she explained.

Sassafras waved her words away. "They'll do. That's the important thing right now."

She thought a moment more, then said, "Here's what you do." and gave Rose Willow a simple design to stitch into the cloth.

Once Rose Willow had threaded her needle and begun, Sassafras went to her yarn basket and pulled out the last of the itchy green yarn, quickly knitting it up into a thin chain.

When Rose Willow was done with her sigil, then Sassafras took them both and put them near the front door, stretching the green cord across the door, Rose Willow's sigil tied in the middle of it.

"Now what?" Rose Willow asked nervously.

"Now, we wait," Sassafras said grimly.

* * *

They didn't have as long to wait as they'd hoped, more than they'd feared. All too soon, they heard the heavy pounding on the door that said the WitchFinders were here and intent on their prey.

"What?..." Rose Willow started softly.

"Hush," Sassafras replied. "Let the magick work."

Suddenly, there were green sparks, a bright flash of light, and the green rope vanished, followed shortly by the sigil fluttering to the floor and... silence.

Sassafras rose, placed a hand to the door, then nodded. "We’re safe now. They're gone."

Rose Willow got up, picking up her sigil as she went to stand beside Sassafras. "What happened to them?" she asked with a mixture of fear and admiration.

"Nothing bad." Sassafras considered for a moment before adding, "Well, in the grand scheme of things. They're alive. They've just found themselves transported to a place far away from here. One where they'll need to learn some tolerance to make it home." She shrugged. "They're gone, that's the main thing."

She went over to the hearth, started heating a kettle of water. "Tea?" she asked, as if nothing had happened, if this were an ordinary afternoon of them getting together for yarn and yarns, sticks and string, with an accompaniment of tea.

"Uhm, yes." Rose Willow shook her head, trying to get her thoughts in order. "Yes. I would like tea." That was the one thing she was sure of in this moment. The rest... not nearly so much.

* * *

They drank together, slowly, letting the peace steal over them.

Finally, "Why?" came from Sassafras, as she finished her cup and set it down on a small table beside her chair.

"Hmmm?" Rose Willow asked distractedly, her thoughts elsewhere, hands that had gone cold with fear warming nicely around the hot cup.

"Why did you come today? To warn me? You must know that's not going to go over well with the other WitchHunters."

Rose Willow looked up from her cup. She'd been wondered the same thing, really. It wasn't logical, not one bit. But it had simply felt like the thing to do.

So she'd done it.

"I don't know. It just.. It just felt like what I should do. What God would want me to do."

"Doesn't that go against what you were taught your God would want?"

"Maybe. But, lately, I've not been so sure that they really know what God would want. The thoughts I've been getting are... different."

"Oh?"

Rose Willow nodded, the steam from her cup framing her face in a way that Sassafras could admit to herself she found rather attractive.

"I don't think that God wants people like you and me to be fighting. I think that God wants all of us to live together, peacefully."

Sassafras lifted a skeptical eyebrow. "Really?"

"Really." Rose Willow picked up the sigil from her lap, surprisingly undamaged after its traumatic use in the protection spell. "This is the sign for love. We both agree on that. Why can't it be true that we can agree on so much more as well?"

"Why not indeed?" Sassafras said in a tone that had Rose Willow snapping her head up to see the look on Sassafras's face. A look that boded very well for the future indeed.

So much so that Rose Willow dared to take a chance, a chance that, if she were honest with herself, that she'd wanted to take for a long time now. "Would you share God's Love with me?" she asked hesitantly.

Sassafras looked confused and Rose Willow's heart began to sink. Then her face cleared and a small smile began to creep across her face. "You mean, make love together?"

Rose Willow blushed furiously. "Yes. That. Us. You & me. That."

Sassafras came to her and took her hand, bringing the other up to brush the hair softly away from her red face. Then she bent and kissed her, slowly, deeply. "Oh, yes," she said, eyes heavy-lidded with pleasure. "That was every bit as wonderful as I'd dreamed it would be."

Rose Willow looked at her. "You too? You've dreamed... of me?"

Sassafras nodded. "Yes, I have. On cold winter nights especially. You, me, and warm, warm wool." She gestured towards her bed, heaped high with handknit blankets. "What about it? Shall we explore the reality together?"

Rose Willow didn't stammer at all when she said. "Yes. Let's explore it together."

And so they did.

yarn  
yarn yarn  
yarn yarn yarn  
yarn yarn  
yarn


End file.
